


You're Breathtaking

by Tea_For_One_Please



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Bisexual Peter Parker, Boys Kissing, Canon Compliant, First Kiss, Fluff, Gay Harley Keener, Iron Dad, Kissing, M/M, Mutual Pining, One Shot, Party Fic, Pining, Post-Spider-Man: Homecoming, Pre-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Precious Peter Parker, WIPS? what WIPS?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:28:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21907477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tea_For_One_Please/pseuds/Tea_For_One_Please
Summary: Harley and Peter are due to attend a charity ball hosted by Stark Industries - but Harley is very aware that he finds it difficult to be in the same room as Peter without turning into a blushing, incoherent mess.
Relationships: Harley Keener/Peter Parker
Comments: 16
Kudos: 313





	You're Breathtaking

“Do I have to go?” Harley complains, and Pepper fixes him with a withering look.

“No.” He lets out a sigh of relief. “In fact, you never have to go to a charity ball, ever, even once you’re the head of this company.”

“Really?” Harley asks, curiously.

“Sure,” she shrugs. “I mean, you’ll lose sponsors in a year and be bankrupt in…” She checks something on her computer. “…four years and eight months.” She smiles at him across the desk. “But sure, skip them if they make you feel uncomfortable, or whatever.” Harley leans back in his chair and groans.

“Point taken,” he sighs. “It’s just so awkward, you know? Hanging around without an objective, making small talk with a bunch of rich snobs I’ve never met.”

“I find them awkward too,” Pepper says.

“Really? You always seem so, I don’t know, natural.”

“Well, not so much these days,” she admits. “But honestly, Harley? It’s all just practice.” She stands up from her desk and circles it to sit next to him. “Working out what to say, how to stand, how to introduce yourself, all that shit.” He cracks a smile at that. “You’ll get used to it, I promise.”

“I guess,” he says, but still has his doubts.

“Besides,” she adds, patting his shoulder as she gets to her feet. “You won’t be by yourself in there.”

“Oh?”

“Tony’s intern is attending as well. You’ve met Peter, right?”

“Y-yeah,” Harley says, his heartrate starting to pick up. “We’ve met.” This is a slight understatement, Harley feels. They’ve met on a few occasions, but each time, Harley’s said or done something that has made him look like a total moron. The first time he and Peter met, he turned completely speechless (for the first time in his life, according to Tony) and stuttered his way through a very uncomfortable conversation. The second time he tripped on his shoelaces and accidentally knocked Pepsi over Peter. The third time… Harley tries not to think about it. It’s best not to. He can’t help it: it’s just something about Peter’s handsome features and radiant smile that just leaves him a bumbling mess. All things considered, spending an evening with a group of unknown millionaires and the prettiest boy alive is not Harley’s idea of a great time.

“Good,” says Pepper briskly, despite Harley’s entirely inverse thoughts. “Then be in the events hall for 6:30. I want your opinions on the setup.” She smiles warmly at him, and Harley recognises that he is dismissed. Pepper is an amazing mentor: she’s supportive, firm, patient, and she always makes time for him – but he also understands how busy she is, and dutifully goes to find Happy to take him back to the compound.

Once there, he flops down in the common room and pulls out his phone. No new messages, which doesn’t surprise him; he tends to drop contact with his friends in Tennessee when he’s in New York. He allows himself just a minute to feel guilty about it before shoving his phone back in his pocket and saying, “FRIDAY?”

“Yes, Young Boss?” Harley grins. Tony would kill him if he found out he programmed FRIDAY to call him that.

“Uh, who’s around?”

“Mr Stark and Mr Parker are in the Lab. Shall I inform them of your presence?”

“No,” Harley says hurriedly. “I’ll go down myself.” Realistically he knows this is probably a bad idea, but he also thinks it would be a good idea for Peter to see that he’s capable of holding a normal conversation before they have to spend an evening together.

“’Sup, losers,” he says loudly as he pushes the laboratory door open. Peter jumps, and drops the soldering iron he was holding.

“Shit,” he mutters, snatching it back up and rubbing pointlessly at the black scorch mark that’s now permanently engrained in the woodwork. “Sorry, Mr Stark.”

“Not your fault, kid,” Tony says with a smirk, lifting an eyebrow in Harley’s direction. Harley looks at Peter slightly guiltily, and his heart melts a little: Peter’s flushed, embarrassed, and he’s pushed his protective eye-lenses up into his hair, leaving the normally neat curls a little wild and unruly. Harley suddenly becomes aware that he’s staring, so attempts a sheepish grin by way of apology. Peter offers him a bashful smile before turning back around and continuing with his work. Harley sees Tony roll his eyes as he wanders over to his desk.

“Whatcha building?” Tony gives him a withering look.

“Don’t you have anywhere else to be?”

Harley shrugs. “I’m done with Pepper, and I’m bored.”

“Fine,” Tony sighs. “I’m trying to make a scaled-down prototype of the retro-reflective panels we used on the cargo plane.”

“For Iron Man and War Machine?” Harley says, his eyes lighting up. “That was my idea!”

“Primarily, yes,” Tony nods. “And don’t worry, there’s a share of the copyright with your name on it in my will.” Harley grins.

“Primarily?”

“Thinking about adding it Spider-Man’s new suit as well, if I can work out how to incorporate it with the nanotech.” Harley notices him glance over at Peter, but before he can wonder why, he registers what Tony just said.

“Whoa, whoa, hold the fuck up.” His eyes widen as he fixes Tony with a disbelieving stare. “Did you just say nanotech?” Tony’s eyes twinkle, which Harley knows to mean that if he were alone, he’d be jumping up and down with excitement. “Are you telling me you got it to work?”

“Nanotech?” Peter asks, putting down his work and lifting the protective glasses again. Harley’s too animated to fully register that Peter is talking to him.

“Yeah, it’s only the most groundbreaking technological advancement of this century!”

“Just a little something I’ve been working on in my spare time,” Tony shrugs, uncharacteristically modest.

“Imagine,” Harley says, pulling up a chair and fixing Peter with wild, excited eyes, “if you could contain the technical readout of something, like… I don’t know, an airplane, in something no bigger than a suitcase.” Peter nods, frowning. “Then, you press a button, and _wham!_ That object becomes full-size and fully operational in seconds. It would revolutionise manufacturing, and massively reduce shipping costs and carbon footprints.”

“Okay, not to be a downer,” Peter says cautiously, “but this isn’t exactly a new concept. S.H.I.E.L.D. and Dr Pym have been working on nanotechnology since, like, the sixties. Hell, I’ve seen it in action.”

“When?” Harley asks, wrinkling his nose. For half a second, Harley thinks he detects alarm in Peter’s eyes, but he responds fairly quickly.

“Uh, the news footage from the airport in Berlin. You remember, the Ant-Man?”

“This is different,” Tony says. He glares at Peter for just a second; Harley supposes he’s still sore over the airport debacle. “Pym’s work physically rearranges the atomic structure of the object. All this does, essentially, is disassemble the pieces and store them very tightly, maintaining their structural composition.”

“Sounds like cherrypicking to me,” Peter mutters, but Tony and Harley ignore him.

“All the same, that’s incredible, Tony. You really got it to work?” Tony smiles and unzips his hoodie.

“Prepare to have your tiny minds blown.” His pulls at the strings extending from the bodysuit underneath, and taps glowing blue diamond sits on his chest twice. Harley and Peter watch, awestruck, as red and golden metal starts to wrap itself around Tony, almost as if it’s unfolding from his very being. Last of all, the helmet materialises, and the lights in the eye-slots glow bright blue.

“Holy shit,” Harley breathes. “That is _legit_.” He glances at Peter, who’s clearly impressed, despite himself.

“Pretty good, right?” Tony’s voice is muffled by the suit, but his usual smug tone is back. He taps the plating again and the suit dissolves back into the storage unit. “Show’s over, kiddos, now scram – you both have a party to get ready for.” Peter frowns at his watch, confused.

“It doesn’t start for, like, three hours.”

“It might take that long,” Tony smirks.

Harley’s barely left the room when he hears his name being called. “Keener, hold up!” He turns around to see Tony approaching from the stairs to the laboratory in the basement. “You got everything you need for tonight?”

“Aw, what, you’re going?” Harley says with a chuckle. Tony smirks and swats at him.

“Watch it, shithead. Seriously, though, are you good?”  
“Yeah. I mean, I haven’t got shit to wear, but otherwise I’m all set.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Tony says, waving a hand dismissively. “I’ve ordered a suit each for you and Parker.” Harley knows better than to protest. Honestly, he’s past the stage of feeling embarrassed when Tony buys him things, and he’s just pleased to have a new, likely expensive suit to wear. Besides, he knows he’ll like it – Tony has good taste in these matters.

“Thanks. I appreciate it.”

“Don’t mention it,” Tony shrugs. “Just add it to the list of things you’ll owe me when I’m retired and you’re CEO of Stark Industries.” Harley laughs and offers Tony a two-fingered salute.

“Well, if it’s all the same to you, I’m going to take a nap before the shitstorm that is this gala thing.”

“Solid plan. You clearly need your beauty sleep.” Harley turns away and flips him the middle finger over his shoulder as he goes. “Happy’ll bring the suit up when he gets back. Anything happens to it, you’re paying for it!” Tony calls after him.

Two and a half hours later, Harley’s fiddling nervously with the cuffs of his sleeves. He always struggles with cufflinks – how is it possible to get the fiddly little bastards through the holes with only one hand? Eventually though, he’s pulling on the suit jacket and buttoning it over the matching vest. As expected, it’s a very nice suit – toeing the line between royal blue and navy, it fits perfectly (obviously, as if Tony would ever get it wrong), with a dark red pocket square (“To add a splash of colour,” Happy told him). It’s pretentious as _hell_ , and Harley loves it. He examines himself in the mirror a few more times, for vanity’s sake, before nodding once, satisfied, and heading out.

He passes Peter’s room on his way down to the event venue, and slows down. He can hear him stumbling around inside, and debates knocking. It could be nice to walk down together. Would it be weird though? Maybe, but on the other hand, their interactions earlier actually went quite well, Harley thinks, and it might be a good opportunity to throw in a flirty compliment or two. Then again, Peter really is his lifeboat in the storm that is this event, and he doesn’t want to cast a shadow over the whole evening by making things awkward between them in the first ten minutes. However, he could –

“Oh, fuck it,” he mutters, and taps lightly on the door.

“Uh… hello?” he hears a muffled, vaguely panicked voice from the other side.

“It’s Harley,” he calls. “I’m, uh, heading down. Do you want to go down together?” He winces at the somewhat suggestive phrasing, and hopes Peter doesn’t pick up on it.

“I’m not quite ready. I’ll see you down there, yeah?”

“Okay, no problem,” Harley says. “Catch you later.” He walks away, shaking his head. “‘Go down together’?” he says through gritted teeth. “Did I really ask that?” An odd thought occurs to him. “He’s had nearly three hours,” he muses. “How is he not ready?” He rolls his eyes fondly. Peter’s fun, and clearly very capable and intelligent – but organisation definitely is not one of his strong suits.

Twenty minutes later, Harley’s sipping on a glass of champagne (which he swiped from the buffet table when Pepper wasn’t looking) and is making conversation with a balding man, who looked to be in his fifties. He’s been talking about his investment portfolio, and Harley is hoping it isn’t obvious that he has no idea what this man is talking about. When the man suddenly asks Harley which schemes he’s got his eye on, Harley politely excuses himself and wanders over to a different group.

This is basically how it’s been going since he arrived: he joins a conversation, introduces himself and laughs along until they ask a question he can’t answer. When he reaches such a point, he pretends either Tony or Pepper is calling him over and vanishes. Rinse, and repeat. So far, it’s a surprisingly effective stratagem.

This time he does actually go over to Pepper, who unusually is standing by herself, surveying the crowd and smiling.

“Hey, kid,” she says as he approaches. “How are you finding it?”

“Not bad,” Harley replies, the lie rolling easily off his tongue. “These people are boring, but they seem to like me.”

“I’ll say they do,” she says seriously. “I’ve had at least two sponsors singing your praises in the last five minutes.” Harley feels himself reddening. “Where’s Peter?”

“Oh, he’s coming. He wasn’t ready when I was coming down.”

“Ah, speak of the devil,” she says, eyeing the door at the top of the stairs. Harley snaps his neck around to see him.

“Whoa,” he breathes involuntarily. He can’t help it – Peter’s curls have been gelled back, and he’s dressed in a stunning wine-red three-piece suit with a black tie. He smiles as he sees Harley, and descends the stairs quickly.

“Like what you see?” Pepper asks teasingly, nudging his arm. He shushes her through gritted teeth as Peter approaches.

“Hey,” he says breathlessly.

“Hi,” Peter smiles shyly. “Hey, Ms Potts.” She smiles knowingly and compliments the suit. _Stole my line_ , Harley thinks bitterly. She wishes them a pleasant evening, advises them not to get into too much trouble, and leaves them to go and chat with another nameless sponsor.

“You, uh, clean up well,” Harley says, slightly lamely.

“You too,” Peter says, blushing a little. “I like your suit.”

“Uh, yeah,” Harley falters. “Yours too. I like your face, too. I mean, shit, I mean – ” He stutters, trying to work out what he was even trying to say, but gives up when he sees Peter laughing.

“Thanks,” he chuckles. “You say the nicest things.” As if this wasn’t humiliating enough, Harley’s mind chooses this moment to notice something truly mortifying: the pocket square peeping out of Peter’s jacket is the exact colour of Harley’s suit, and his own is the same wine-red of Peter’s outfit.

There is absolutely no way Tony did that by accident.

He refrains from pointing this out, but catches Tony’s eye across the room, and definitely doesn’t imagine Tony winking at him. Harley’s going to kill him.

“Where’d you get the champagne?” Harley is shaken out of his reverie by Peter’s question.

“You’re sixteen.”

“Harley, we’re the same age,” Peter says, laughing. Harley grins and nods over in the direction of the buffet table.

“I’ll come too,” he says, draining the last of the champagne. “I’m hungry.”

“So what are the people like?”

“Stuffy, boring. The usual,” Harley shrugs.

“I hate that Mr Stark makes me come to these,” Peter says. “I see the point in you coming, since you’re going to run the company someday, but why do I have to?”

“You’re the only intern,” Harley says. They reach the buffet table and Harley scans the food, looking for something he recognises. “Maybe… maybe Tony wants people to see how he’s catering to the next generation? I don’t know,” he finishes lamely.

“Or maybe he just wanted me to be company for you,” Peter says as he piles sausage rolls onto a plate. He gives Harley a mischievous smile before turning back to the food. Harley blinks – was Peter _flirting_ with him?

“Oh yeah?” Harley says, trying to match Peter’s tone and hoping he’s succeeding. “He must have wanted to make me look good.” Peter’s jaw drops in feigned offence.

“Uh, _rude_ ,” he says with a laugh. “I could go home right now.”

“Go on, then,” Harley says, smirking. Peter pretends to consider it.

“Nah,” he says finally. “I’m only here for the food anyway.”

“Now who’s rude?” Harley shoves him lightly, but then Tony catches his eye, so he clears his throat and stands up a little straighter. “We should, uh, probably be mingling.”

“Good call,” Peter nods. “I’ll catch up to you later, yeah?” Harley nods and smiles, then Peter turns away from him and wanders off. Harley misses him immediately.

They exchange little more than a few side glances and a few words of hushed conversation until the venue is starting to empty. When Harley’s current conversation partner looks at her watch and announces that she _really_ must be going, she’s far overstayed her welcome, Harley wishes her a good night, and wanders over to the balcony door. He catches Peter’s eye and beckons him over with a surreptitious tilt of his head as the doors slide open. He steps out onto the patio and breathes in the cool evening air, coming off the river in a gentle breeze. He leans on the railing and yawns, taking in the countryside. It’s a fairly clear night, with only a smattering of clouds blotting out the stars. Harley hears the doors slide open again, and Harley turns.

“Hey,” Peter says. He’s abandoned his suit jacket, leaving just his shirt and vest, and he’s rolled his sleeves up to his elbows. _God, he’s cute_ , Harley thinks. “You looked like you had fun tonight,” Peter says, joining him at the railing.

“I did, actually,” Harley admits. “Sure, some of the people were super condescending, but some were nice. And I’m sure it raised a lot of money.” Peter hums an affirmative. “What about you?”

“I’m still not sure it’s my scene,” Peter says with a shrug. “But it’s nice to see how the other half live sometimes, and Mr Stark says I can keep the suit.”

“Well, that’s a bonus,” Harley says. They’re quiet for a moment or two, as Harley musters up the courage to say what he’s really thinking. “Hey, Peter?”

“Hm?”

“I just wanted to – god, this is going to sound weird.” He takes a deep breath and tries again. “Here we go. I just wanted to tell you that you… you’re breathtaking.” He pauses, his voice shaking. He doesn’t dare look at Peter. “You were easily the best-looking person in there tonight, and I just… I want you to know that I really like you.” When Peter doesn’t respond, he keeps going. “I have since I first met you, and the more I spend time with you, the more I like you. I know that’s sappy, but I just wanted to tell you.”

“Harley – ”

“I know you probably don’t feel the same, and that’s fine,” Harley says. He’s acutely aware that he’s rambling, but can’t shut up. “I mean, shit, I don’t even know if you’re into guys or whatever, but I just – ”

“Harley, stop,” Peter says gently. He closes his mouth to stop the wave of sound and turns to look at Peter. His eyes are wide and earnest, and his expression is so open and soft that Harley sort of wants to cry. Why the hell did he just say all that? Silence lingers between them for a moment, as Peter seems to be struggling to find words. “I… like you too,” he says eventually. It’s difficult to tell in the low light, but Harley thinks Peter is blushing. There seems to be something else Peter wants to say, but he gives a little shake of his head and smiles. “Another time. This’ll do for now.” With that, he leans in and kisses Harley on the lips. It’s quick, and shy, but Harley thinks it’s perfect. “There,” Peter says with a small smile. “I think that covers it.”

“I don’t,” says Harley cheekily, and moves closer to Peter, seizing the front of his vest and pulling him into another kiss. This time, it lasts longer, and Harley feels Peter’s fingers running through his hair in an exploratory manner. Harley releases Peter’s vest and places his hands gently on his waist. Their lips part slightly for breath, and Harley could swear he hears a soft sigh escape Peter’s mouth. When they finally break apart, they both let out a nervous laugh.

“Whoa,” says Peter between breaths.

“We are definitely doing that again,” Harley says, with a slightly nervous chuckle. Peter smiles, and Harley just about has time to register how pretty he looks when he smiles with his teeth, before Peter offers him his hand to take. Harley readily obliges, and they wander back through the now-vacated venue together.

As they pass through the compound’s common room, hand-in-hand, Harley’s vaguely aware that Tony is watching them from behind the breakfast bar, and he can practically feel the smug glee radiating off him. He knows he’ll go through hell for this later. But being honest, he’s too euphoric to mind too much.

**Author's Note:**

> I make no apologies for this frankly very self-indulgent story. I hope you've enjoyed reading it as much as I've enjoyed writing it!
> 
> If so, please do leave a comment with your thoughts or drop me an ask on Tumblr (@tea-for-one-please)!


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